So I was always aware that the boxes existed, that the name Seger was on them, so that was a flag. i’ve not gotten to listen to everything just yet, but what i have put ears to is pretty incredible.
No Iggy, no release. The short answer was yes. Was it that the tapes told a different story than Iggy had been telling for 50 years?
Edit Release All Versions of this Release New Submission . Sometimes it’s just when it’s been told enough times by enough people and sometimes it’s when there’s some corroborating evidence.
That’s what he would tell her.”, “Eventually, I started to take dad’s stories with a big hunk of salt.”. GLONO: What was your expectation of what was on the tapes? – ed.]
Blackwell told Joshua to bring the tapes to Nashville so he could have them transferred to digital files, no strings attached. Rogers had no equipment to play the tapes — he wasn't even sure they actually contained music — but Phillips knew who could help: the folks at Third Man, who specialized in high-end historical releases and had a passion for Detroit rock.
At least, that’s how the story went. You know, she was from Birmingham! With no known recording of the performance, that’s the way the story has been told for much of 50 years. And today, August 7, 2020, fifty years to the day of the start of the festival, The Stooges Live at Goose Lake 1970 is released to the world. That gave time for Blackwell toenlist Vance Powell, a Grammy-winning engineer and producer, to spruce up the sound and bring it to life. Blackwell told him he had something he wanted to play for him, so they met at Third Man’s Cass Corridor location. But that was my overall impression: they’re there, there might be some Seger stuff on them and that’s it. Even KO , historic maybe , but hardly a high quality recordings . “He asks, ‘what’s this?’" Blackwell says. Here were the Stooges, real and potent, playing one of their most fabled performances of all. We haven’t gotten those transfers back yet, so we don’t know though. An audio engineer, Cassily was rolling tape at the Goose Lake International Music Festival, awash in talent and swarmed by fans 50 years ago this weekend just outside of Jackson.
Cassily’s family isn’t sure if he was officially hired by promoters to record the festival, but he managed to roll tape on sets by John Drake’s Shakedown, Litter, New York Rock and Roll Ensemble, Flock, Chicago, Third Power, Mountain, James Gang and Mitch Ryder, as well as Saturday night’s set by the Stooges. The recording’s half-century journey is a tale of old mysteries, a bit of myth-busting and a son eager to fortify his late father’s legacy. "I don't know if it would have been in an official capacity, or maybe Dad horned in and said, 'Hey, I'll bring my gear and record it.' They were both amazed to hear this legendary show they played 50 years ago. Share. But Cassily also struggled in his career, frequently striking out as his various pro-audio companies "took off and fell apart," Rogers said. I was put off by a lot of it.”. Blackwell took them to Welcome to 1979, a nearby studio, where they were transferred to a hard drive. "Dad tried a lot of stuff, and a lot of it didn't pan out for a long time.
But the main point is that it’s there. "This album definitely redeems Dave's reputation as ruining this show," she said. Third Man Records was the first place we thought of. Joshua drove his 2010 Honda Fit to Third Man’s headquarters in Nashville a few weeks later.
“From the very beginning on this, it's always just been about making one small piece of dad’s legacy known,” Joshua says. Crammed in cardboard boxes, they’d followed the family from home to home through the years, from Rogers’ youth in metro Detroit through a move to western Michigan.
They were always just there with a bunch of dad’s other stuff that I never asked him about! if necessary, i can send over pics of me wearing an original Goose Lake t-shirt holding an original, unused Goose Lake bumper sticker to prove my worthiness. He continued to work in the audio field, tinkering with various inventions, developing a low-noise amplifier used in early satellite TV dishes, and later a device he called the Interactive Metronome, which was used to improve timing, rhythm and attention in special needs children and adults. “The music was wonderful, but I found it a little too seedy for me, even as much of a hippie as I was at that time,” she says.
When Rogers’ mom sold the house in 2016, “we had 170 years of detritus built up in the basement.” Not everything could make the move, and tough decisions were at hand. "And I have this huge grin on my face and I say, ‘Stooges, live at Goose Lake.’ And he looks at me and he says, ‘Can we put this out?’”. Right away, Blackwell’s music geekdom was apparent. And that they do so much in-house is amazing considering Third Man is a small operation compared to the majors who seem to crank out fewer and fewer acts every year. Blackwell: In terms of finds, this is one of the more bonkers examples I’ve been adjacent to. The Stooges were not necessarily the biggest band on the bill at the Goose Lake International Music Festival in 1969. The band’s 45-minute set, which ran from 8:45-9:30 p.m., saw them ripping through the entirety of the new album. So the actual existence isn’t the issue, it’s that someone as wise as Joshua and his family save said artifacts and find the right partners to share them with the world. Joshua Rogers: I remember seeing them in the attic of our house in Brighton. There was one point when we were meeting with Blackwell in his office at Third Man that, by design or turn of conversation, seemed to seal the deal. What happened next is the scene in the movie you wouldn’t believe if it was in a movie: Within five minutes, Jack White stormed into Blackwell’s office, unexpected and unannounced. After working with Bob Seger, the Ohio Players, Funkadelic and more as an engineer and producer, Cassily phased out of the industry in the 1980s. The unearthed recording "stunned" her, she said, reviving memories of that milestone moment when her brothers played their biggest show yet. Some — including Seger — not at all. One box, marked “Goose Lake Masters,” contained 17 reels. Iggy gave his blessing to the album, and a release was locked in to coincide with this weekend's Goose Lake golden anniversary. He has a theory why his dad was recording at the soundboard that weekend. Then comes `Live at Goose Lake` , which to my ears is by far the best live recording of the stooges ever released . He had some fun years doing that,” says his ex-wife, Melanie Rogers. Blackwell had primed McGroggan on what he had, but the only cleaned-up song was “TV Eye.” When Blackwell put it on, McGroggan instantly perked up and his eyes grew wide. So, as any Stooges fan would do, he cued it up on his office stereo system and cranked the volume, “loud to the point of being rude,” he says. It’s rickety at times, occasionally slipping out of time and out of tune. “There isn’t anything else like it out there.”, More:Scaled-down music events to run Fridays at Campus Martius, More:Detroit's musical legacy celebrated in new 'Roadshow' with Steven Van Zandt and Drew Carey. It’s a document of a really neat event. I “claimed” them when she was moving out of the main house and into the attached apartment. Third Man already had its hands in a variety of Stooges projects, including Iggy Pop's 2016 book, "Total Chaos," and a vinyl reissue of the band's 1969 debut album, pressed at the company's Detroit record plant. She'd been at Goose Lake that day in 1970, standing behind Rod Stewart while watching the Stooges from side stage. When we moved [into the farm house in Grand Rapids] they came with us and just sat in the corner of that basement. Rogers: Dad talked about it – both parents did. They discussed the potential of putting it out and various release dates, and figured they’d hold off until 2020, which aligns with the 50th anniversary of the Goose Lake performance. GLONO: And then they were temporarily misplaced? Bassist Dave Alexander was summarily fired from the band by Iggy immediately after leaving the stage because he was so stoned or scared or whatever that he couldn’t play. "That myth is now totally dispelled.". You saw them and said, “Hey, what are those?” And you probably immediately knew there was something interesting there. The event — still the biggest rock festival in state history — promised a weekend of hard-rocking hippie bliss in rural Michigan. “I tried my best to make it an honest playback of the original tapes.”.
After graduating from Denby High School on the city's east side and later Western Michigan University, he worked in various facets of the music industry in his early 20s. The longer answer was he needed Iggy's approval. What caught my eye was a label marked “Goose Lake,” which I had heard about from Glorious Noise founder Jake Brown’s mom when we were growing up. Or was he just not into the idea of a live release of the show? "I didn't really expect there to be anything usable on any of them. At one point, she suggested the tapes hit the dumpster. Melanie didn’t meet Cassily until eight years later, and they married in 1980. When alerted to Rogers' Goose Lake tapes, Blackwell recalled, "I was wiping the drool off my face.". Founded by Jack White with deep-rooted ties to Detroit and a track record for putting out historical recordings, Third Man seemed like a no-brainer. Rogers: They’re sitting in storage now. Early on we dubbed him “Gadget,” not just for his love of technology but for his impeccable timing as a drummer. The Rogers Mansion, as it had been come to be known, had a basement broken into three sections and one day we decided to move our rehearsal space to the middle section, which meant moving all of the antiques, files and boxes from one section to the other. Then there’s Dave Alexander’s bass. The one recording I am most interested in hearing are the two 1” tapes of Teegarden & Van Winkle and Seger at Hill Auditorium. GLONO: Are there other recordings in there you’re considering exploring or doing anything with? The Stooges’ performance at Goose Lake was pure rock and roll myth. Whatever the number, Goose Lake was big — a gritty, Michigan version of Woodstock the prior summer, with ample drug use, nudity and a bill of era-defining rock. “I’m the first person to be in the position to confirm or deny this lore,” he says. Blackwell: I was super optimistic at the onset of this conversation. The box had several tapes, some photos of Josh’s dad with various music pals, and one artifact I fear is gone forever.